Europe’s Refugee Scandal

Long-term educational and employment needs have historically been severely undervalued in humanitarian planning. But, as much as refugees need proper food, shelter, and health care today, they also need the knowledge and tools to build new lives and contribute to society tomorrow, whether in their home country or in a new one.

LONDON – It has long been known that the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos is plagued by overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and rampant violence, including riots that have left many injured. But when aid workers reported in April that children as young as ten were attempting suicide, another tragic facet of the refugee crisis was highlighted: 30 million children around the world are currently displaced, many in appalling conditions. The crisis is not just putting them in danger today; it is threatening to destroy their futures.

In the Moria camp, children live in fear. Recent riots have displaced hundreds of camp residents and badly injured several. This is traumatizing for children who are with their families, but even more so for the many who are unaccompanied. Making matters worse, many children lack even basic shelter, with thousands of families crammed into cheap donated tents that often aren’t even waterproof. Last winter, three people died of carbon monoxide poisoning while trying to stay warm.

But the challenges these children face extend far beyond the short term. Even if refugee children eventually manage to get somewhere safe, their prospects are bleak, because most will never have a chance to go to school – a reality that will severely undermine their ability to find gainful employment.

Gordon Brown, former Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom, is United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity. He chairs the Advisory Board of the Catalyst Foundation.

Moria, on Lesbos, will undoubtedly not be a comfortable place.However does no one ever ask why all these people are concentrated on that small Greek Island ?Nearby Africa is 7 times as large as the EU and has 45 sovereign Nations.If these people migrated to one of these countries there would not be any refugees.If camps would be needed, they could be more spacious and cheaper to exploit.Why the brutal accusation of Europe by mr. Brown ?

Gordon Brown speaks of a refugee „scandal“ in Europe, especially when children „as young as ten were attempting suicide” in the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, because of the incredibly appalling conditions there. The European Commission has “allocated more than €1.5 billion to Greece since 2015 to manage the refugee crisis.” It now raises the question how the funds were spent and where exactly they had gone. The author has failed to address the responsibility of those parents, who overlook their abilities to support a large family. According to a 2016 report, in the Azraq camp for Syrian refugees in northern Jordan, birth rates soared, because husbands discouraged their wives from using contraception. Although women were more keen on contraceptives than men, many got pregnant. They came from rural areas in Syria, which had higher birth rates than the national average, and lacked knowledge about modern family planning methods. Many Syrian refugees want scores of children to compensate for losses occurred in their families and feel a sense of duty to repopulate their country. Apart from economic hardship, there is also the risk that they might not be able to return without proper papers. A birth certificate is the crucial first step to securing Syrian citizenship. Or else they could join a fast-growing generation of children, who are stateless. Looking at the number of births, there may be about hundreds of thousands who are potentially not registered in the region as a whole. Children now make up more than half of the world’s refugees, according to a UNICEF report. Just two countries – Syria and Afghanistan – comprise half of all child refugees under protection by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Report also showed child refugee figures jumped by 75% in five years to 8 million, and there were calls for urgent action to protect the 50 million child migrants worldwide. While much has to be done to improve these children’s lot, it is not a task that the West can manage alone. The international community needs to work together to resolve the problems. To begin with it needs to start with the source of the many grievances that start a bloody conflict, forcing civilians to flee for the lives. Cultural barriers and religious taboos sometimes prevent refugees to adjust to a new reality in exile. A few Eritrean teenagers killed themselves after travelling to Britain without their parents. At least three who came to Britain from the migrant camp in Calais had killed themselves in the past six months. It highlights the predicaments of vulnerable asylum-seeking children, who had been through months or years of extremely traumatic experiences, having fled conflict and encountered multiple dangers on their way. While everybody has the duty to help, it is much easier to help those who help themselves. This requires political leaders in every country to provide for education, instead of leaving the task to preachers or religious charlatans. Unfortunately family planning is not on the agenda of politicians in many countries, as it is a taboo. They fail to understand that a small, yet educated and skilled population can contribute more to growth and prosperity than a large, but uneducated populace.

Aimed to dissolve refugees' scandals all over the place by increasing the system architecting scope all the way to globalization, Can GORDON BROWN help this message to go beyond this website into global mass media or at least his response to it? Might he do that?

This is based on the reinterpretation of one paragraph of the "Transcript of press conference given by the Prime Minister, Mr Gordon Brown, and Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Alistair Darling, in Washington, on Saturday 15 November 2008." Then and now all leaders are not global leaders. Global leaders will emerge once the root cause is agreed upon as being the need for an Updated Global Conceptual Model of The Wealth of Globalization that makes obsolete the Simplistic Globalization Model of The Wealth of Nations that’s still driving policy decisions today.

In that respect, this is part of what Brown said "We now have a global economy, global competition, global flows of capital, and the institutions we built in 1945 were built for the sheltered and protected economies of that time. We need to change the way our international institutions work if we are going to have proper crisis prevention, proper early warnings, proper surveillance of what is happening in different continents, and therefore the right decisions internationally based on greater global cooperation."

The result of the changes resulted in the Dark Globalization as the statu quo concentrated in problem solving when what was needed was to embrace the opportunities for an institutional innovation to help emerge the Bright Globalization. Instead, what emerged was DeGlobalization. What follows is repeated from my comment under the Project Syndicate, Sep 17, 2018, "A Better Bailout Was Possible" by ROB JOHNSON and GEORGE SOROS.

As the article concentrates on an EcoNoMic alternative to the "recent exchange between Joe Stiglitz and Larry Summers about 'secular stagnation’,” telling that “additional issues need to be explored in depth,” I understand those issues will also be limited to the following.

Except for at least one value, we propose that the “Mission & Values” of the “Open Society Foundations,” does not deal yet with the Updated Global Conceptual Model #MCGA of #TheWealthOfGlobalization aimed, for example, to minimize #FakeNews. The #MCGA makes obsolete the Simplistic Globalization Model #MSG of #TheWealthOfNations, that underlies, for example, Joseph E. Stiglitz new book, “Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited: Anti-Globalization in the Era of Trump.” I suggest that said value that fits the #MCGA but not the #MSG is: “We believe in taking on controversial issues and supporting bold, innovative solutions that address root causes and advance systemic change.”

Having said that, I understand that this is the proposal of ROB JOHNSON and GEORGE SOROS "The Democrats must recognize these problems, not downplay them. This year’s midterm elections will be a plebiscite on Trump, but the Democratic presidential candidate in 2020 must have a program that many Americans find inspiring. The electorate has seen where the Republicans’ demagogic populism leads, and a majority should reject it in 2018.“

Larry Summers’ proposed debate was reframed into “Get a friend to RT & Like an #MCGA Secular Stagnation Generative Dialogue ( https://medium.com/@gmh_upsa/get-a-friend-to-rt-like-an-mcga-secular-stagnation-generative-dialogue-9048a5a67992 ).” In the meantime, we proposed that “The next and best #TIA_GD narrative opportunity is in the #USA (https://medium.com/@gmh_upsa/the-next-and-best-tia-gd-narrative-opportunity-is-in-the-usa-b5f2d4b54948 ).”

Based on my June 2011 post How to Cross the Thin Line from Arrogance to Leadership ( https://grupomillenium.blogspot.com/2011/06/how-to-cross-thin-line-from-arrogance.html )." as a sole systems architect stepping stone to the EcoIsOurs profession, we can reinterpret as a success that we don’t need the generative dialogue as no EcoNomist has responded to my innovative proposal since them.

I am able to say that based on what Roberto Verganti wrote his book Overcrowded: Designing Meaningful Products in a World Awash with Ideas" to support “This enlarged thought experiment is aimed to prove that the USA is the next and best nation for “There Is Alternative” #GlobalDebout #TIA_GD Narrative.”

When I selected the single paragraph from the article I didn't articulate an important difference between the #MCGA and the #MSG. I just articulated it with a tweet that says:

Replying to @gmh_upsa @andrewtghill and 7 others

Should the £30,000 decision of the #BBYA18 go to the closer to the #EcoIsOurs that mutually reinforces the #EcoNoMy, #Social, and #Environmental dimensions in positive ways under #TheWealthOfGlobalization #MCGA, well beyond the sole #EcoNoMy dimension of #TheWealthOfNations #MSG?

Of course, the mentioned paragraph of the Simplistic Globalization Model #MSG did't consider the #Social dimension related to the "Europe’s Refugee Scandal."

Greece is a bankrupt nation. Minimal supports for present citizens. How in the world are the Greeks going to be able to budget for refugees, when they can't even budget for present population? Gordon, why don't you just fly down there, on your own dime, and help out. Get your shoes dirty, roll up your sleeves and do something constructive for the Greeks first, and then help out the refugees.

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